Abstract
Many opposition parties in electoral-authoritarian regimes identify as democracy movements. I ask: what ideologies do they publicly express? The first-glance answer is 'democratic ones', but there are many theories of liberal democracy, and they say little about living under or indeed confronting authoritarian regimes. I analyse the public messages of two such democracy movements: Chadema (Tanzania) and the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC, in Zimbabwe). I argue that they each articulate a homegrown vision of democracy in which they adapt democratic theory to make sense of their electoral-authoritarian circumstances. They do so by articulating that theory through the 'populist logic' conceptualized in the discourse-theoretic perspective. I call them anti-authoritarian (and democratic) populisms. Previous research has overlooked the distinctiveness of these ideologies because it has adopted concept configurations which invisibilize them. I argue that there are reasons to expect there to be a wider body of anti-authoritarian populisms articulated by democracy movements in electoral-authoritarian regimes in Africa, and indeed, worldwide.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-22 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Government and Opposition |
Early online date | 12 Dec 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 12 Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Open Access via the CUP agreementKeywords
- Africa
- anti-authoritarianism
- democracy
- electoral authoritarianism
- populism